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April 5, 2012
TT: Almanac
"A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one."
Thomas Carlyle, "Jean Paul Friedrich Richter"
Posted April 5, 2012 12:00 AM
About...
ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS MORE ABOUT "POPS" ABOUT TERRY'S PLAY AND OPERA LIBRETTI Terry collaborated with Paul Moravec on Danse Russe, a backstage comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring that was premiered by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater on April 28, 2011. To read more about Danse Russe, go here and here. To view excerpts from the opera and see Paul and Terry talk about its creation, go here. Terry previously collaborated with Paul on The Letter, an operatic version of Somerset Maugham's 1927 play that was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 and opened there on July 25, 2009. To see excerpts from the opera, go here. To read Terry's reports on the writing, production, premiere, and reception of The Letter, click on the link.
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A list of new things we've liked (subject to unexpected and wildly capricious updating). PLAY EXHIBITION BOOK DVD CD
Not new, but still worth a look or listen (and no less subject to change without notice).
CD SCRIPT
This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout, Laura Demanski (otherwise known as Our Girl in Chicago, or "OGIC" for short), and Carrie Frye (who signs her postings "CAAF"). Terry, who lives in New York, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the chief culture critic of Commentary. His Wikipedia entry is here.
Terry's latest book is Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the U.S., JR Books in England, Larousse in Brazil, and United Press/Alpina in Russia. He is currently at work on Mood Indigo: A Life of Duke Ellington. He wrote the introductions to William Bailey on Canvas and the paperback editions of Richard Stark's Flashfire and Firebreak and Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. One of his essays is included in Robert Gottlieb's Reading Dance, and he contributed notes on recordings by Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and Oscar Peterson to Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology.
To read reviews of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, watch TV interviews and listen to radio interviews and podcasts about the book, and find out the answers to frequently asked questions about Armstrong and Pops, click on the link.
Terry's first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, will be produced
this summer by Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Mass., with John Douglas Thompson playing the dual role of Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser. Performance dates are Aug. 22-Sep. 2. To order tickets, go here. To read more about Satchmo at the Waldorf, go here. To read an excerpt, go here. To see a video of excerpts from the Orlando production, go here.
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TOP FIVE
Saint Joan (Access, 380 Broadway, extended through May 13). George Bernard Shaw's history play about Joan of Arc runs for three and a half hours and calls for a pageant-sized cast of twenty-four. How to make it doable in a tiny off-off-Broadway theater? By reconfiguring the script for a woman and three men who switch from part to part à la The 39 Steps. It may sound gimmicky, but Eric Tucker's vest-pocket staging, mounted in a house so small that one scene is played in the lobby, fuses Shakespearean speed with Brechtian directness. It's the most exciting Shaw revival I've ever seen (TT).
Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting (Frick Collection, 1 E. 70, up through May 13). A miniature show of nine full-length portraits, all of them stunningly persuasive, painted between 1874 and 1883 by a painter who could be too easy and likable but is here shown to be the master he (sometimes) was (TT).
David Goodis, Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and 50s (Library of America, $35, out Mar. 29). All but forgotten today save for the films made out of his books--François Truffaut turned Down There into Shoot the Piano Player--Goodis was a pulp novelist of nightmarish compulsion, and his work, whether or not it merits enshrinement by the Library of America, remains immensely readable. If you've been missing Richard Stark more than usually of late, this collection, which opens with Dark Passage, the 1946 novel on which the Bogart-Bacall thriller was based, will ease your pain (TT).
Anatomy of a Murder (Criterion Collection, two DVDs). Otto Preminger was the most uneven of major film directors, but he hit the target with awesome force in this tough-minded 1959 screen version of the best-selling novel about a self-doubting lawyer (James Stewart) who tries to save an army officer (Ben Gazzara) from doing time for a murder that he may or may not have committed. The "supporting" cast, which includes George C. Scott, Lee Remick, Arthur O'Connell, and Eve Arden, is fully equal in quality to the front-liners, but it's the total effect of Anatomy of a Murder that you'll remember. Never has the American legal system been portrayed with such searching honesty--or such cinematic éclat. The score is by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, the titles by Saul Bass. As usual, the Criterion Collection provides both a flawless transfer and a second disc crammed full of watchable extras (TT).
Duke Ellington, At the Crystal Gardens, Salem, Oregon, 1952 (Hep, two CDs). This album captures the Ellington band in public performance at an awkward juncture in its long life: Clark Terry had recently come aboard, and Johnny Hodges and Sonny Greer had been replaced by Willie Smith and Louis Bellson. It was a tough time for the Duke, but he made the most of it, and this set, privately recorded in excellent sound at a West Coast dance date, reveals the band to have been in colossally fine form. The fare includes The Tattooed Bride, one of Ellington's most effective large-scale pieces. Outstanding liner notes by Andrew Homzy (TT).
Out of the Past
Louis Jordan 1938-1950 (Fremeaux & Associés, two CDs). Imported from France, a near-perfect selection of thirty-six 78 sides by the singer-saxophonist and his Tympany Five, the jumping combo whose hard-swinging brand of populist jazz helped to set the musical agenda for rhythm and blues and early rock and roll. Not to worry--most of the big hits are here ("Choo-Choo Ch'Boogie," "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby," "Saturday Night Fish Fry"). If Jordan's joyous music doesn't make you smile and/or pat your foot, you need an intervention, or maybe a lobotomy (TT).
Horton Foote, Horton Foote's Three Trips to Bountiful: Teleplay, Stageplay, and Screenplay. Originally written for live TV in 1953, The Trip to Bountiful, the poignant story of an old woman trapped in Houston who longs to visit her rural home one last time, was adapted by Foote for the stage and, in 1983, the screen. This invaluable 1993 volume, published by Southern Methodist University Press, contains all three scripts, accompanied by interviews with Foote and his various collaborators. I can't think of a better way to study the differences between the three media--or to deepen your familiarity with a once-obscure play that is now rightly regarded as an American classic (TT).
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